Remembering Malou Amelia

But then it all comes rushing back to me. And I am miserable without you. I don’t know how to live without you, my darling daughter…

I don’t want to see or talk to anyone. Just want to sit and think of my Malou.

I love you, baby girl. I miss you so much.”

This shows how my “good days” could so easily turn into “bad ones.” As if allowing myself happiness only pushed the sadness away temporarily, allowing it to come back even stronger later. The good news is that that pattern went away…like I said before, eventually the good days outnumbered the bad. And having a “good day” didn’t mean I’d be due for a bad day. It just meant I had a good day. And I tried to be grateful for that, instead of feel guilty. Because it is so easy to feel guilty for laughing when you have a dead child. No one judged me, but I judged myself. Laughing felt so foreign at first that it would startle me – and then I would immediately become sad. I remember my first real laughter with Tom – it turned immediately into sobbing. My emotions were all mixed up. I am so grateful that laughter comes easily to me now, 3.5 years later.